Local Photographer Looks to Create Local Farm Resource Website
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 10, 2010 4:00PM
Shoppers at Green City Market may know Kate Gross as one of the folks selling arugula, cavolo nero and other heirloom greens and produce at the Kinnikinnick Farm booth. Gross is also an accomplished photographer; her photos of local farms seem to almost jump off the screen in their color and vibrancy.
Gross has posted many of the photos from her farm visits on her blog, Dishes and Dirt. "I was attracted not only to the farms and farmers, but to trying to capture the growing relationships between the farms and the restaurants and farmers market customers that buy their produce," Gross said. "There's a social element to the farm-to-table movement that I don't think is talked about as much as knowing where our food is grown."
From the nascent steps taken on Dishes and Dirt, Gross is now working on Ingather, a resource website using her photographs to relate the histories of the farms for people interested either in eating local or hearing a good story. "A lot of the farms I've visited don't have a solid web presence, if they have one at all," she said. Eventually, Gross would like Ingather to work not only in representing the farms, but to allow other media to use her photographs on a fee-based approval system. To that end, Gross has set up a Kickstarter account which she hopes will raise the money she said is needed for her to establish Ingather with a solid foundation for growth.